The Great Margaret Hamilton

Her Code Got Humans on the Moon—And Invented Software Itself

••Margaret Hamilton's Code Got Humans on the Moon + Invented Software Itself!•• Wired article 2015-10-13: in a Man's world, yes, it was/is a woman! ; ) 1960 MIT math undergrad • she did when software was not part of language, nor in NASA/Apollo budget + women were not engineers/programmers

Margaret Hamilton was the lead software engineer on the team that developed the Apollo flight computer software, and is credited with coining the term "software engineering." As the Apollo 11 Lunar Module tried to land, an error in the flight manual led to an unnecessary radar being left on, overloading the computer. Her robust design allowed it to detect and report overload situations, and to skip lower-priority tasks. The system handled it appropriately and the landing was not aborted.